Early in her pregnancy, Allison Blosfield learned that her baby would have Down syndrome. Though at first she was "sobbing" and "freaking out," she described her husband as being "very calm" and saying, "Whatever happens, babe, we'll roll with it. It's cool. Don't worry about it." Unfortunately, the surprising news didn't end there, and Allison later learned that her baby was likely developing hydrops, a life-threatening condition. At this point, doctors told Allison that terminating her pregnancy was an option.
Around the same time that they learned of this health risk, Allison and her husband decided to name their baby Ethan. When doctors informed her that terminating her pregnancy was an option, Allison realized "[she] could walk away. [She] could be done with this whole nightmare."
"The level of fear that you feel, the level of anxiety that you feel, and I was just like, I could be done. I could just be done and run away. And after I took a breath and thought it through, I was just like, ‘no,’” she said.
Allison felt that her time with Ethan would be limited, but on several occasions, her baby surprised her by surviving. Allison later learned that her baby had a heart defect. “They told us that if he did make it to birth, survived birth, that it was likely he wouldn't live more than 24 hours," she said. Ethan was born in December 2022, and Allison and her husband stayed with him in the hospital. She said, "every day, there was a new fire. Every day, there was a new battle to go through."
Ethan died on June 30, 2023, meaning he lived for 199 days, according to Inside Edition.
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Allison used social media to document her experience. "I was given 199 miracles. Ethan Samuel you were never supposed to live past 16 weeks gestation," she wrote in an Instagram post. "You will always be a miracle and I am forever changed by your life, heartbroken at the loss of you and grateful because of the gift I was given."
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